Twilight the remake
by Layla Nightshade
Summary: For people who wish Twilight made more sense, had less romance, and had smarter characters. Review if you read, please! Note: going through major rewrite.
1. A Decision

"Dinner's in the fridge, Bella. I'll see you tomorrow night, take care of yourself!" My mom, Renee, yelled from the door. She was leaving on her two-day-one-night trip to New Mexico for her new husband's baseball game. Phil had decided that she should come, and I'd opted to stay home. Normally, Mom would have asked me why I didn't want to go, but she was so eager to have a mini vacation that she just assumed it was because of exam week. Then she just left.

I opened the fridge, and saw that what she had planned for me to eat for dinner, we had actually eaten at lunch. I got a box of pasta from the pantry and got to work. It wasn't like it was the first time she'd forgotten. I didn't blame her. She'd been so excited about Phil from practically day one that she'd been forgetting just about everything.

I had wanted to stay since I wanted her to have fun with Phil without worrying about me. And think more about moving to Forks, Washington. My dad, Charlie, was living there, and I figured he could use company. And soon Phil was going to be playing all over the U.S, and I didn't want Renee to constantly have to apologize for forgetting about me at some point. She deserved her fun.

The only problem was, Forks was so small, I might get bored to death there. The only thing to do was watch movies and shop at the mall. And I wasn't so fond of shopping at the mall. Here I could work on learning Spanish and French. I could pursue my own subjects. Forks was so small, _somebody _was bound to notice that I didn't do normal things. And I liked being invisible. So did my friends.

Speaking of friends, I thought I should probably go and email Nicole to see if she had finished designing her pen/small pocketknife. She'd been bored, so she'd been working on that. I was more into languages, so when I got bored, I tried to force more French in my head.

I opened my inbox, and instantly saw an email from Nicole. She'd copied and pasted a report on missing people in Forks. She'd typed, "Check it out. Isn't that where your dad lives? No wonder he's police chief there. But small towns don't have such high crime rates…"

I looked at the screen blankly. I typed into a chat box,

"Well, I've been thinking about going to live in Forks, but this is going to make it harder to convince Renee to let me go..."

She typed, "You could walk out the door right now and she probably wouldn't notice :P"

"And you think my dad is going to let me come if people are going missing?"

"Your dad is a policeman, he can protect you." Then she added, "Robyn is telling me she's starving and there's no food in the fridge!"

I blinked. Nicole must have been messaging our other friend. If Robyn had a slogan, it would probably be "always hungry, always eating." Despite that, she somehow managed to stay stick thin. She said it was her "high metabolism."

"Um, sorry, can't help you with that. But thanks for reminding me I have to go eat! Bye!" I responded.

I got up and ate my dinner. It looked like I needed to have a talk with Mom when she got home the next day. I needed to get out of here. I was happy for Mom, but I think I'd go crazy if I had to stay home alone any longer. She'd probably let me go. It was my dad I was worried about, but hopefully Nicole was right and he'd let me go.

A girl can hope.

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**A/N: Hi, I'm doing a major rewrite, and hopefully I'll get a lot done before school starts, so keep your fingers crossed! There's going to be a ton of plot changes, so even if you've read these chapters, you might wanna go over them because a lot will change!**

**Please review! Also, I don't usually write in first person, but the original Twilight is written in first person and I didn't want to change that for some reason...**

**I love the Olympics! Bye!**


	2. Unexplained happenings

The drive from the airport to my dad's small house in Forks was not all that eventful, but it was about 15 minutes long. My dad was on the phone the whole time talking to his fellow officers about the details on the disappearances that Nicole had emailed me about it.

I listened in, but it was the usual stuff. They all occured at night, nobody noticed until the next day, nobody knew who could have done it, etc. Whoever did these was not a creative person, I suppose. But then, if they were creative, they probably would do other things in their free time.

So I didn't do much except stare out the window and look at the sideview mirrors. When we got home I went to my room with my luggage. It was exactly as it had been when I was about five years old, except that my dad had cleaned it for my visit.

After about ten minutes, the doorbell rang. I didn't really know if I should go downstairs so I went to the top of the stairs and saw the visitors from there.

Three people entered the house. A man in his thirties with blond hair, and two teenagers, one girl and one boy. The girl was rather short with sort of spiky hair. The boy had copper colored hair, I suppose, and his eyes were darting everywhere, obviously either nervous, or looking for something. They looked like a family.

The man spoke first. "Charlie, have the autopsies came in yet?"

I knew what the answer was. Autopsies never came in that fast, especially for small town murders. So did he drive here just to ask that? Phones existed these days.

I saw the boy tap the girl twice, so fast I almost didn't see it.

Now what did that mean? Were they here for something else?

I saw Dad say "No, Dr. Cullen. They will come in by next week, at the soonest. Come in, sit down." Then I lost track of what he was saying as I observed the two siblings, who, while they were walking to the couch, looked like they were trying to communicate.

The boy lagged behind the others, did a 360, and frowned.

What was he looking for?

Then he slowly looked from the kitchen to the wall on his right.

It was the girl's turn to frown.

Was he slowly shaking his head? How did he know what she was asking?

This was probably some sort of secret sibling communication that I didn't know about, seeing as I was an only child.

The boy suddenly froze in panic.

What was going on here? Perhaps I was bored from having to sit in a plane for 2 hours, and I was just overanalyzing things.

Dr. Cullen looked at the girl, who was staring pointedly at the staircase that I was hidden at the top of.

"Alice, Edward, we're leaving now, come on. It was a pleasure seeing you, Chief Swan."

Edward elbowed his sister and the family got up and left.

Dad and I ate dinner and I told him about the boy and the girl's odd way of communicating.

Dad smirked. "I bet they do that all the time, and nobody noticed because they're too busy staring at Edward, or his cousin, Rosalie. People have no decency these days. Carlisle, the doctor, says sometimes he just wants to draw on his face so the nurses will quit staring at him and do their work instead. Downright annoying, tell you that."

Maybe I was an odd child. I hadn't even noticed how handsome the whole family was. Renee always told me my dad and I have a habit of not noticing what people look like.

Dad continued. "As for me, Carlisle's a nice guy. If people would quit staring at his face maybe they'd notice. It must be horrible, having everyone judge you by looks all the time."

We finished dinner, and I went upstairs and unpacked some more, and prepared to go to Forks High School the next day.

* * *

**Like I said, going over a major rewrite. Feedback is appreciated!**


	3. Meet again?

The first thing I noticed when I got to the school was that the other Juniors treated me like everyone else to my face, to keep me from getting nervous. Then at least half of them (primarily girls) tried to discreetly gossip after we'd been introduced. I tried not to blame them. This was a small town and they needed something to talk about.

My partner for the day was Jessica Stanley, who toured me with her friend Angela Weber. Angela was the photographer for the school paper. Jessica planned school events. She was on student council as Junior class president. Angela told me she was sophomore class president last year as well, so at least she was really good at it. The class president of my grade in Arizona had been a jerk shopaholic who probably spent more time doing her make-up than she did actually presiding over the class. She had to spend extra time on it because it was so hot, the make-up literally melted off her face. The only things she'd done was plan a bunch of school dances which were generally very awkward and give out mirrors to people she thought needed them, as a joke between her and her friends. My friend Robyn had used the mirrors to shine light in the girl's face, and Nicole had accidentally set her Spanish homework on fire once. Well, she claimed it was an accident. The girl didn't believe her.

First period was math, which was okay, although I knew math was not a strong subject with me so I had to practice a lot. Also, Angela was a math whiz. The hard part was second period, which was gym.

I knew I was going to be klutzy. I was new here, which made me nervous. I told Jessica this, since she wasn't the type of girl who'd go telling everyone that.

"No sweat," She said, "Just play. We're cool with that," She paused. "That sounded really cliche."

I did play. It wasn't too bad. There was something about this class, I realized. The guys didn't stare at girls. We laughed just about everything off. And the girls here didn't wear three pounds of make-up. It rained too much here for that, although Jessica told me that even if it didn't rain, she didn't have much time for a lot of make-up.

I was a little clumsy, though. During the volleyball game I managed to spin around while hitting the ball, almost hitting a girl named Lauren Mallory in the face.

Angela joked quietly, "Cool pirouette." I smiled.

Jessica and Angela both had to stop by the bathrooms before lunch, so they told Mike Newton to escort me to the lunchroom.

The first thing I noticed: He was careful not to look at me. At all. These people were really trying to not make me feel like a specimen under a microscope.

No wonder the Cullens fit in here. Although I hadn't seen either Alice or Edward all day, I was pretty sure they had friends here. After all, nobody stared.

Jessica and the others sat at a table with me, and I saw Edward and Alice across the room. They were sitting with a third girl, a tall blond who looked to be the oldest. Or maybe it was just her stance that gave her that appearance. Jessica saw me staring, and brushed her dark hair out of her eyes before speaking.

"I don't know what to make of them. Sometimes Alice looks like she's dying to talk to Angela about something, but it looks like she _can't_. Every time she looks over here, her brother Edward jabs her with his elbow. Rosalie's the oldest, she's a senior. She looks really haughty, but I'm sure she wants friends. I don't know why they don't talk to anyone."

Angela inserted, "I feel sorry for them. Alice seems really nice. She just... I don't know... it's like what Jess said, it seems like she wants to be friends, but she _can't_."

I wondered about their interest in the murders. There was something different with this family. Even if they were shy, they'd had a few months to get over it, seeing as they'd moved here around August and it was now November. Not that you could tell the difference, with the drizzly, cold weather all year round.

It was time for biology class. I got up to leave with Mike, since he had the class as well.


	4. Biology class

I was paired with Edward Cullen for Biology. We were studying cells under a microscope and were supposed to figure out which stage of mitosis they were in. Mike was paired with Jacob

Black, who was the grandson of my dad's friend and fishing partner Billy Black. He wasn't in any of my other classes.

Biology is my best subject, although I obviously also like Spanish. I suppose Edward was good at it too, because we were both done with the first sample in two minutes. We could not get our next sample, because one of the microscopes was broken and Mr. Binder was busy fixing it. Or trying to. He may be good at Biology, but apparently mechanics was not working with him.

After a few minutes of awkward silence, Edward took a napkin out of his pocket and started to draw on it. I started to go over some Spanish in my head. Then I tried to think in French.

That was when Edward looked up at the board in apparent horror. He started to squint, as if he was trying to concentrate on something. I stopped thinking in French, because I didn't have a total guess as to what "Why the heck is Edward scared of the wall?" translates to in French.

I looked at the board and saw it had a cell drawing on it. Figures. That was not supposed to make Edward look like the building was on fire.

The second that thought went through my head, his face contorted more. Then he smirked and went back to his drawing, shaking his head.

He was drawing sheet music on the napkin. That wasn't what had caused his reaction.

Maybe he was stressing over exams, or something. Anyway, his adverse reactions to nothing were none of my business.

Mr. Binder gave up on trying to fix the microscope and we were given another sample and finished it quite fast as well. Jacob and Mike volunteered to look at the microscope and he shrugged, saying "have at it."

That was the only interesting thing that happened in Biology. After my other classes, I went home and started my homework. Then I studied for my SAT's.

Back home in Phoenix, Robyn announced she was entering in an art competition and that Nicole was continuing have the best test scores of our class. Renee and Paul were planning their next trip, as usual.

That was how it went every day, more or less. Edward would do other odd things in Biology, mostly involving frowning randomly and the like. I would have lunch, math, and Spanish with Angela and Jessica. I had no classes with Alice, but Angela seemed worried about her. Apparently she had a tendency to freeze randomly and stare off into space. She was also reprimanded by the teacher for drawing during class on at least two occasions. Angela dismissed it as either some sort of stress or just plain unable to concentrate in class. Perhaps, Jessica suggested, the Cullens were having some sort of family problem. That would explain Edward and Alice's mind wandering. We tried to ignore their odd behaviors.

Until the autopsies came.


	5. Car crash

"Huh," I said, looking over the report with Dad. "Slash marks everywhere. They all died the _exact_ same way."

Everything was pretty normal with the way they died. I mean, murder isn't normal, but slash marks weren't the end of the world. It wasn't like the killer had some really odd/creepy habit, or even a specific target. The victims weren't the same race, gender, or age.

But there was something else that baffled the police department. Slight traces of venom. Slight, but on every single one of the four victims. Not enough venom to kill, and I knew animals didn't just waste venom on something they didn't eat. That is, unless Forks had homicidal animals along with murderers.

In fact, the only abnormal thing about these murders was the venom, which wasn't even from one animal. It appeared to be some cross of snake and black widow venom.

I told Jess and Angela about this. I felt like I had a biological obligation to pay attention, what with my dad always in and out of the house working on it, and because murders hadn't occurred in Forks for decades, Jess and Angela were also curious. We were also doing it out of respect for the dead. I mean, if one of us died, we wouldn't want our fellow townspeople to just ignore it.

Every time someone mentioned the murders, I noticed Edward and Alice would flinch. I wondered if it was a coincidence. Most of the time they weren't in earshot of the person talking about it, which should mean that they couldn't hear us. Besides, the murders didn't especially concern them. They couldn't have done it, and I didn't think they had any family members who died. I asked Jess if they did, just in case my assumption was wrong.

"I don't think they have any in this area," She said. "They moved here from Alaska a week before you came."

Well, they picked a good location. Moving from a cold place to another cold place wasn't all that bad, weather-wise. I'd moved here from Phoenix. Now that was different.

* * *

A few weeks later, two new victims were found, and they were exactly like the first four. I absentmindedly hoped that the murderer wasn't someone we knew. Although if it was, it wouldn't affect me as much as it would everyone else in the town, because I had just came here and didn't really know anyone.

There it is, I thought humorlessly as I got out of the car. The one and only advantage of being the new kid: if unusual murders are happening and the crook turns out to be someone living two streets down, you will be the least traumatized.

I tried not to slip and fall face-first as I walked around my car. It was now late November, and the roads were all iced today, and I, being the Arizona native who had only seen snow in movies, had driven extremely slow to school, paranoid about ending up with my car flipped over in a ditch.

I admit I should have been a lot more careful about the actual act of getting my school stuff out of the car. There I was, standing right in the parking lot, and I didn't even hear Mike's car screeching like a dying animal as it swerved out of control and headed straight for me.

I heard it a second too late, and all I could do when I turned around was attempt to dive out of the way.

And that's when I saw them. The Cullens, all moving at the speed of light. Alice was a blur as she crossed the three yards between us and pulled me out of the way. Rosalie, who was already standing near my car, surreptitiously nudged it out of the path of Mike's car with her toe.

I couldn't believe it. _Nobody _could move that fast or move my car with their foot.

Nobody else saw them except me, because they were all staring as Mike's car crashed right into the building.

I heard sirens. The police and the ambulances were already here. I wondered how they had gotten there so fast and somehow I knew where to look. I saw Edward standing next to his car. He had a phone in his hand.

How had he called the police before the accident happened? There was no way he could have known.

I saw Dr. Cullen pull Mike onto a stretcher. There was shattered glass everywhere from his car. I looked back at where the Cullen siblings should've been standing.

They were out of sight. They'd been standing there just a second ago.

My last thought before I blacked out was, "they really need to try out for track."

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**A/N: I know everyone's going "But wait! the reason only Edward saved her is so it wouldnt be so obvious!" But the point is, the reason he tried not to be obvious was because of the Volturi. Now I have a question. How is the Volturi supposed to know that this even happened? So there we go. No need to be inconspicuous, although his kind does need to cover up for the humans.**

**And if anyone is confused, nothing is the same about Twilight in this story when it comes to the Volturi. Because the way it currently is, it doesn't even make sense. Same with Victoria. For one thing, in this story, she will have a last name like a normal person.**


	6. Hospitalized

The first thing I saw was Mike on a stretcher next to me with cuts all over his face from his own broken car window. There was blood everywhere. Dr. Cullen was looking over his injuries, and when I asked him if I was okay, he said I should be fine.

"Where's my dad?" I asked, too tired to figure out scientific explanations for what had just happened.

"Oh, he's investigating another... disappearance." I heard a clearly audible click, over the beeping and chatter. Maybe it was machinery.

Someone else had been murdered, then.

"Can I talk to Angela and Jess?"

"Sure. Alice, could you go get them, please?" Alice? Where was Alice?

Oh. There. Right next to the door. Why did she suddenly have a bunch of eyeliner on?

When she came back with my friends, the eyeliner was gone. But when she passed poor, cut up Mike on the way to my stretcher, it suddenly came back. Then she speedwalked out the door again after her dad, who wheeled Mike out behind her.

I shook my head and tried to forget about it. This was getting too weird.

"Did you see the Cullens when the car crashed?" I whispered, hoping they did. I did not want to explain what I saw.

Angela frowned. "Bella, the car crashed in like four seconds flat. Of course we didn't see them, we weren't looking."

"Okay, well, um, after I rolled over, Rosalie moved the car with her_ foot _and Alice dragged me to her car, all in, apparently, 'four seconds flat.'"

Jess started. "What?"

"And somehow, before the car crashed, Edward called the police."

Angela kept a straight face. "Look, we can't go and confront them, for one thing, Alice looks pretty depressed right now, I don't want to make this worse for her, and for another, if they can move that fast _and_ move cars with their feet, then they're obviously stronger than us. I don't know how that's possible, but if that's what Bella saw, then we shouldn't go near them. Or at least, shouldn't annoy them by asking questions."

Jessica knitted her fingers together and thought. "There is something weird with them, besides what happened today. Alice and Edward get all jumpy whenever someone talks about the murders."

Angela nodded. "Maybe we should pretend Bella didn't see anything. If we start asking questions, they might get annoyed, or provoked. If we find some serious evidence that they've got something to do with the murders, we'll turn them in."

I looked up at the ceiling, which required no energy whatsoever, as I was on my back on a stretcher. "Deal."

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**A/N: I hope you're all happy with the story right now, and if you're not, please review! Constructive criticism only! And you know what, if you're happy, then review too! I might not even post the next chapter until I get 10 reviews! :P Nah, I wouldn't be that evil. Or would I...?**

**Also, a message for a certain viewer(s): Angela= Adelina De V**


	7. Alice Leaves

The next day, Angela came in looking slightly pale and she was a lot more tired than usual. She didn't even pause to snap a picture of Jacob pretending to hit Mike with a book and just

sank into her seat instead.

I wondered why she was so tired. We were in math class, and it was her best subject.

Jess got to her first. "What's up, Angela?"

Angela yawned. "Got about 2 hours of sleep. I have insomnia." Jess winced.

"Yikes. Well, I have news for you. Alice asked to be transfered into our math class."

Angela nodded. "Yep, there she is. And she's staring at the wall again." I turned to look at the desk right behind Jessica's. I'd never seen her during her odd episodes. There she was,

staring over Jess and point blank at the wall. I remembered seeing her staring at our staircase. That had looked different. The way she seemed now, I bet if someone dropped a book

next to her she wouldn't even blink.

Jess followed my eyes. "Uh, Bella, why are you frowning so hard?"

"She looks weird... I don't know what it is, but that's not just zoning out. It's like she's seeing something else besides the wall." Suddenly, her expression changed to one of panic and

she snapped back into focus. Then she raised her hand.

"Mrs. Johnson, I don't feel good. May I go to the nurse?" Our math teacher told her it was fine, and then turned back to the board.

Alice rushed out of the room with a paper clutched in her tiny hand. I looked back at her desk.

There was about four or five papers scattered on her desk. I remembered Angela saying that Alice had been caught drawing during class once.

"Jess," I whispered. "Can you reach those papers?"

Jessica quietly reached behind her and got the papers off of Alice's desk. Mrs. Johnson turned around.

"Miss Weber, please come up and do this problem on the board." Angela dragged herself out of her seat.

Jessica shoved the paper into her bag as Mrs. Johnson asked, "Miss Stanley, please go to the office and ask if Miss Cullen will be returning to class."

Alice wasn't coming back, apparently. She said she was sick. Jess went back to doing math and practicing a card trick. Magic tricks were her latest hobby.

I waited as patiently as I could until lunch to see what Jessica had shoved into her backpack. Until then, I had Trig to deal with.


	8. Drawings

Jess pulled the papers out of her bag and looked at them by herself. Then she handed them to Angela and me, with a perplexed expression.

"Something is familiar about these, I just can't figure it out. Angela?" Angela had photographic memory. Maybe she could remember something we couldn't.

She took one glance at the first picture, a very nice sketch of a small restaurant, and nodded. "Uh, let me think... all I remember is some lady standing in front of it." She bit her lip.

It hit me. "With a mike?"

Jess snapped her fingers. "That's it, it was a reporter. Isn't that restaurant where the one of the missing people was last seen? But why did Alice sketch it? Here, look at the next one." She laid down the

second picture.

A used books store. Where the mom of one of the missing people worked. Angela picked up the first picture and studied it again, while Jess and I went through the others.

They all had some connection to the missing people. All of whom had been found dead, with some small trace of unidentifiable venom.

I had thought the Cullens had no connection to the murders. I hoped they didn't, actually. While Alice had been withdrawn, she didn't look like someone who would do that.

And she'd helped save me from Mike's car, hadn't she? Hadn't they all?

Angela slapped the first picture down on the table. "Bella, look at this." Her finger pointed to the bottom left corner.

The picture was dated. If Alice had written the date she drew these pictures, then she'd drawn this one three weeks ago.

Angela said it first. "That's one day before the murder even happened." Jess promptly started shoveling food in her mouth so she would be saved from pointing out the obvious.

"She knew about that, too. I bet you she was the one who told Edward to call the police when Mike's car crashed. When she stares off into space..." I thought about how it looked like she was staring

at the wall, but she was seeing something else. I continued, "When she stares off, she's having... a vision of some sort, I think. And she draws what she sees."

Jessica stopped eating. "With amazing accuracy, apparently. And she saw something today. She ran out of math class with a paper in her hand. Someone else is going to go missing."

Angela looked up from the pictures. "Look at this."

The last picture was nothing like the others. It was a pretty dress, and it wasn't strapless like most of the dresses these days. It was rather decent.

"I don't like wearing dresses, but I think I'd wear this one." Jessica said admiringly.

Angela put the pictures in her bag and shrugged. "So she has a hobby and has visions. Balanced life, I suppose."

The bell rang. I ran for Biology class.


	9. Realization

I slid into my chair next to Edward just as class started. I couldn't even see what was written on the board. All I saw were the pictures Alice had drawn.

She could see the future. But how? Most of the observant people of the world could tell the the future to a limited extent. Noticing things like probability and putting events together. Like

Robyn, who always accurately predicted the weather because she knew how the whole atmosphere worked so well. And Angela, who could usually tell when we had a pop quiz because

one of the students was acting up, or we'd just covered a new unit, or she could just see from the teacher's mood. But randomly seeing where someone would go missing? I had no idea

how that was physically possible.

Edward dropped his pencil next to me. I looked at him oddly, as he had never even came close to dropping anything before. Then I went back to thinking.

Why did the victims have venom traces?

Edward froze, then snapped his pencil with his thumb and forefinger. Mr. Binder hadn't even turned around from the board yet, I thought suspiciously.

Suddenly, I remembered. All the times he'd looked alarmed when I'd talked about the murders. And all the times he'd frozen for no reason.

There could be no other reason, other than the fact that all I'd done was think about how odd his family was, or about the murders.

And now, how we'd just realized Alice could see the future. Could Edward... read minds? Could he know what people thought? Was it off of facial expressions, the way Nicole could tell what I was thinking?

No, it wasn't. There was no facial expression on my face that read 'I just realized your sister can see the future,' and yet, he'd known what I thought. Even now, he was still panicking,

sitting perfectly straight.

I immediately blocked all thoughts from my head. I thought only with pictures, to see what he'd do. Nothing. He couldn't tell what I was thinking now, I was sure of it.

I thought in Spanish, this time about the picture Alice had run out of the classroom with, and he started to frown.

So he knew Spanish. I switched to French and stayed that way.

A frown of a different sort settled on his face for the rest of the class. A puzzled and confused sort of frown.

I smirked. He couldn't tell what I was thinking now.

* * *

_**Okay! Review!**_


	10. Nearly Smashed Elbows and Given Warnings

For the rest of Biology class I had tried to hide my thoughts as much as possible. Once a sudden reminder came to me: I had to tell Jess and Angela about Edward's ability.

Realizing I had just thought that in plain English, I turned to Edward to see if he had noticed.

He hadn't. In fact, he looked frustrated and ready to smash the table. The same puzzled frown had stayed on his face, but now, a look of panic was settling in.

I suddenly felt sorry for him. For whatever reason, he could usually tell what everyone was thinking. Undoubtedly, he had started to rely on that ability. He knew how to charm the people

around him with it. He knew how to get information with it. If I could repel him, and nobody else had found a way to, then he must be panicking.

The bell rang, and I ran to find Jess and Angela. I grabbed my bag, but something fell out. A pen. I barely stopped to pick it up before I ran out the door and nearly

steamrolled Jacob Black. I found both the girls standing at the water fountains, with Angela focusing her camera out the window. I looked out and saw a beautiful bird with green and blue feathers.

"A violet green swallow," Angela whispered reverentially, angling the camera. She showed an extreme amount of focus for someone about to be stampeded by students. "I have got to get a picture of this."

"Why doesn't she take the shot already?" Jess mumbled.

Angela snapped the picture, which was just as well, because the bird flew away a few seconds afterward. She turned around and I started.

"Guys, I have got to tell you something." I grabbed their arms and we shoved ourselves into a deserted classroom.

Angela looked around. "All clear," She said.

"Edward can read minds."

Jessica dived for the camera as Angela dropped it. She landed on her elbows.

Angela winced. "I owe you one."

"Yeah, you do," Jessica groaned, giving her the camera. "I think I'm just going to stay here for a bit. My arms can't move."

"Do you think there's a way to stop him from reading them? We would probably need to know more about how he reads them..." Angela mused.

"There is one way. I thought in French. I tried Spanish too, but it looks like he knows Spanish."

"Great," Jessica said. "I don't know any languages other than English. I know some Spanish, but that won't help."

Angela continued. "That must mean he hears our stream of thoughts in our head. Maybe he can only hear the sounds. Did you try thinking in pictures?"

"I did, it's hard, but maybe if you slip in enough pictures he'll get confused."

Jessica managed to sit up and rubbed her elbows. "It doesn't matter though, does it? He already knows we know about the murders," She paused for a second. "Let me correct that. Everyone _knows_ about the murders. We're the only ones who care, besides the Cullens, apparently."

I got up and started pacing. It helped me think. "I don't know what we should do. Nobody will believe us if we tell them about Edward and Alice, and that family has something to do with the murders. We need to know why they're so worried about them."

Angela nodded. "We need to know why it connects to them."

Jessica looked at the ceiling for a moment, then said, "Maybe we should figure out why the people were murdered. It has to be something they all have in common, because I doubt these are random killing sprees. Bella, does your dad have a list of the victims?"

"He's been studying them whenever he has time. I bet the papers are just scattered all over his desk."

"Okay. We need to talk to him about this, figure out what the Cullens are up to, and study for the SAT. Angela, help me up, I need to get to my house and sort out this madness." Jessica said determinedly.

Angela helped her up. "Agreed."

* * *

_**Okay! Review!**_


	11. Research and Stories

I got home and asked Dad if he'd found out anything new about the murders.

"Nothing," he said, "There's not any sort of connection that I can see, and no reason for it, either. It looks like it's just random killings now, but I'm not so sure..."

If Dad couldn't find anything, then we probably wouldn't either, and there was one thing left to do: get the truth out of the Cullens. But how?

I tried to study, but after I did my math homework, I kept thinking about the murders. Whoever did them was desperate. It made me sick.

I decided to look up more French. Someone had to keep Edward from his mind-reading.

Before the hour was up, Angela invited us to her house to study for the SAT. I drove there within 15 minutes, and arrived to find Jessica on the coffee colored couch, reciting the facts of World War 2 for history class as though she was a textbook. Then after the overall story, she moved onto the Nazi occupation in Denmark, throwing in lots of extra facts that weren't in the given lesson. Angela was studying vocabulary flashcards.

"How do you do that?" I asked, open mouthed, after Jessica was done.

She shrugged. "I love history. You learn from it," She glanced at Angela. "I hate vocab, though."

Angela looked up. "I needed to finish Trig homework, but I'll do that when I'm up at midnight again," She sighed good-naturedly, "Insomnia stinks."

We were all practicing vocab, but after a while, it felt odd. Like we were being watched. Angela persisted with her studying.

"Come on, Jessica," Angela urged, holding up a flashcard. "You know this one. Inopinate."

Then I saw it. For the briefest second. Rosalie's blond hair; it had flashed at the window before she disappeared.

Jessica was struggling. She hadn't been facing the window and hadn't seen Rosalie. "Inopinate. It's an adjective. Um..."

"Rosalie!" I shrieked. It blurted out of my mouth. I couldn't stand this mysteriousness anymore.

Jessica started, but the word had come back to her. "Inopinate. Something unexpected, a surprise."

There was a click as Rosalie opened the window and came in, sighing. "Come on, Alice, they saw us. May as well come out."

Jess put her head in her hands. "Inopinate. I'll never forget what that means now. Not even if I try."

Angela glared. "What are you doing here?"

Alice came in. "We'd like to talk. But the others don't think it's a good idea."

The others. Jasper, Emmett, Edward, Mrs. Cullen, and even Dr. Cullen, though he had seemed nice.

Jess snorted. "They don't think talking is a good idea? No wonder you're anti-social."

She hadn't meant it. Jessica wouldn't ever say anything like that. She was trying to anger them so they'd speak.

Rosalie took the bait. "No, they don't think talking to low-life, polluting, extinctionist-"

Alice's eyes widened. She knew what was coming.

"- merciless, violent, ignorant _humans _is a good idea, thank you very much. And I'm starting to believe them. It's only because of Alice I'm here."

Angela's eyes narrowed. "Thanks for all that, _non-human, _we're trying not to pollute here, in case you haven't noticed. I write articles on it. Everything here is organic, do you know how much that costs, rich girl? And scratch the violent, merciless part. I don't even kill bugs."

"So you know we're not human," Alice said quietly. "What do you think we are?"

"I don't know, you tell me. And after you're done with that, explain the murders. Just because you didn't kill anyone doesn't mean you're not guilty. You

know where they're going to happen and you still don't tell anyone. That's as bad as doing the killing." I said. I think the 'Chief Swan's daughter' in me came alive then.

Alice nodded, unsurprised. I could see now that she'd left her drawings on the table on purpose. Perhaps she had even transferred to our math class just to let us figure out her ability.

Rosalie sank into a couch. "We don't know what we are, either. What we know is that we're the product of an intentional human effort to create live

_weaponry_," She said the word as though it made her sick, then continued, "and it's not fair to us. Why should we care about your murders? For all we know, you humans murdered hundreds of test subjects before we were made."

Jessica frowned. "All right. So explain your abilities. _Everything._"

"Abilities? You humans aren't as ignorant as we thought," Rosalie said, surprised. "We are this way because someone injected themselves with several venoms, so that their so-called abilities could be transmitted. Then they transferred it to us. The powers of venom are amazing. It is being studied by scientists-"

"-who believe that the venom contains coded cures for human diseases." Angela finished.

"True," Alice said. "Several of your medicines originate from venom. Prialt, from the cone snail. Integrilin originates from gaboon viper venom. Viprinex

from Malayan pit vipers. Many more medicines have yet to be discovered. But not many people know about this. You humans seem to think that nature

cannot hold the answers. You are dead wrong. We must learn from nature's perfection. The cone snail had the mechanism for pressurized darts far

before humans did. And theirs are still more proficient.

"But changing humans using venom is the wrong way to go. We were created venom-free. There is a reason for that. Although we have the powerful

muscles of a snake, our human bodies do not have enough energy for it. Rescuing you from Mike's car took a lot of strength. We spent the day we got off

of school in total bed rest, feeding on pure sugar water. We learned that trick from the hummingbirds." Alice sat back, rubbing her forehead.

I remembered the car crash. Only Alice and Rosalie had done anything requiring strength. Despite what Rosalie may say about humans, she had saved

me. Either by her own will or because of Alice. Alice, who had known what was going to happen.

Rosalie continued. "The visions Alice has and each of our individual abilities have extreme repercussions. Usually skull splitting headaches, but also

fatigue, concussions, and other things we have yet to find out. Where those mental abilities came from we don't know. Most likely from the inner

mechanism of the animal we were bonded with. But being this way has one positive. If I had grown up normal, I never would have known what humans

do to nature, to the very food they eat. Anything but completely natural, non-processed food is as poisonous to us as it is to animals. We cannot live

in anything but small towns, for in cities, the air is too polluted. Our fate, and the humans' as well, is tied to the fate of the earth."

I gasped. If I was one of them, I never would have lived in Phoenix. I never would have met Robyn and Nicole.

Alice sat up. "We have told you all we know about us. But what _are _we? We have no idea. But we are not natural, and that in itself will kill us."

"In short," said Rosalie, "We have enough to worry about without adding murders to the list. Especially if the murders have nothing to do with us."

Alice was petulant. "Edward and I care, but there's not much we can do. They're happening too frequently. The energy to required to save them would

get us hospitalized."

"At least tell the police where they're going to happen." pushed Jessica.

"We would, but we have bigger problems."

"Like what?"

"We think they're after us. The murderers are one of our... kind. They must want the research we have. It's the only reason they could be here."

I remembered the venom traces in the victims. But why would they transfer their venom to the victims?

There was something they weren't telling us, or perhaps they didn't know, themselves.

"What research?" Jessica continued.

"About how to turn us back to humans. And we aren't going to hand it over."

"And why is that?"

"Because many animals were killed to change us. And many more will be killed if we wish to reverse it. We stopped the research when we figured that out."

I spoke up. "Anti-venom. The cure for venomous injuries. It is derived from the venom itself. That's what they want."

Dad had told me that. When he was a child he had to call the ambulance when his friend had been bitten by a rattlesnake in Forks. He had asked the

doctors how they were going to cure him.

"It's not that simple. It takes years to put together this sort of database. Each of us has at least ten different venoms involved in our making. To find out

which of the thousands of animals it comes from requires extreme genetic testing. This is why they have to steal it from us."

I got up. "Then we're talking to my dad. There's some way out of this. And you owe it to those victims. They're dying for you."

* * *

**All the stuff about the venoms is true. I've been researching it for months. Look it up yourself.**

**And people say animals were created by accident. You can't create pressurized darts on accident.**

**Review!**


	12. One Small Forgotten Detail

We all got into Alice's car (she insisted), and I was a bit surprised when I investigated scratching sounds and found Jasper and Edward hiding in the trunk.

Actually, Rosalie and Alice were a _bit_ surprised too. Rosalie just froze as her mind tried to repair her bruised ego. She couldn't believe she hadn't noticed them. Alice was more pragmatic.

"You know, you two, you're allowed in my car, you just have to ask. You don't have to sneak in the back and sit there for half an hour..." Alice said, shocked.

Jasper got out of the car and pulled Edward out, too. He looked at Alice.

"It's not like we weren't grounded and had to sneak out of the house, or anything," he said defensively, "and someone came out of the house happy. You haven't smiled that that in weeks."

Rosalie snorted. "It's about the get a lot better. We're going to Chief Swan to tell him all about us. The first human cooperation with our kind in decades."

"I think I'll just get back in the trunk again," Edward said weakly, "and pretend I don't know anything about this so Mom and Dad can kill you two, instead."

He sat down and started muttering things that sounded like, "Crazy... insane...absolutely ridiculous..."

"Hold on a minute," Jasper said suspiciously, "They're just going in your car? And they aren't afraid?"

Jessica frowned. "We're supposed to be afraid? Why did nobody inform me?"

Alice looked down shiftily. She looked extremely forlorn all of a sudden. Jasper reprimanded her.

"Come on, don't tell me you didn't tell them."

"It's not like I'm proud of that fact, or anything." Alice said belligerently.

Jasper relented. "I'll tell them," he said, turning to us, "because of the venoms in us, we have the ability to survive on blood. Not that we do, but with how unsafe the food is these days, most of us are relying on blood to survive. Us, we use animal blood when we have to. Others-"

"-drink human blood," Angela said, horrified. "You're... you're..." She trailed off, recovering her strength.

"Oh no, don't you dare call us that." Edward said angrily.

"... vampires."

We trusted them, and they had said they didn't drink human blood. The three of us moved to the car. The others, surprised, followed suit.

"The nonsense you humans come up with," Rosalie said, "_vampires. _So scientifically incorrect-"

"-it is our fault, though," Edward said, getting into the car after us, "because we are the cause of that myth, however inaccurate it may be..."

"... it's still accurate on one thing, though. We consume blood when desperate," Alice said sadly, "we have no choice, other than dying from eating pesticide laden food."

"Yeah, especially for the lazy ones. Why bother researching forever which food you can eat and risk dying from it when you can just go hunting the creature that made you that way in the first place?" Edward clarified.

"Shh, you guys," Rosalie said, her sarcasm and hardness disappearing, "look outside." She looked out the window, transfixed.

"You're so lucky to live here," Jasper explained, "the stars are bright, you have a forest, the air is clean enough for us to survive."

"Sorry to break it to you, but most people would like to live next to an actual mall instead of a forest. Not many people want to live here." Angela said.

"Too bad for you. We're here, and there's Chief Swan, wondering why you're in Alice's car. Everyone out," Edward said, smiling devilishly, "last person out has to tell him vampires exist."

There was a mad rush, as, all manners forgotten, everyone hurtled themselves from the car.


End file.
